Both factions despised and denied him.

Traitor, cried one; thief, cried the other.

He no longer held any social status.
He was the fallen man, the man who _had_ been, and who was no more.
Was not the excessive misery of such a position a sufficient explanation of the strangest and wildest resolutions?
This thought made Maurice tremble.

Connecting the stories of the peasants with the words addressed to Chanlouineau at Escorval by M.
Lacheneur on the preceding evening, he arrived at the conclusion that this report of Marie-Anne's approaching marriage to the young fanner was not so improbable as he had at first supposed.
But why should M.Lacheneur give his daughter to an uncultured peasant?
From mercenary motives?
Certainly not, since he had just refused an alliance of which he had been proud in his days of prosperity.

Could it be in order to satisfy his wounded pride, then?
Perhaps he did not wish it to be said that he owed anything to a son-in-law.
Maurice was exhausting all his ingenuity and penetration in endeavoring to solve this mystery, when at last, on a foot-path which crosses the waste, a woman appeared--Marie-Anne.
He rose, but fearing observation, did not venture to leave the shelter of the grove.
Marie-Anne must have felt a similar fear, for she hurried on, casting anxious glances on every side as she ran.